Legendary Sea of Cortez – Northbound
Tuesday, April 21st – Thankfully, it is only 30nm from San Evaristo north to Los Gatos, for we have to motor the whole way. The wind is just too light all morning. As we are dropping anchor around noon, Manuel the lobsterman approaches us inquiringly. There is no hesitation in our response. “Claro que si! Por esta noche? Dos.” Dinner is ordered.
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The Dingbat is launched, and we head ashore to walk on Los Gatos beach.
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On the beach and going up into the nearby cliffs, there is a layer of this colorful slick rock that is well worn by the sea and weather.
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Compared to the rugged, scrambling hikes we have had so far, this slick rock expanse is a unique and fun experience.
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The variations in color are interesting, for some of the expanse is dark grey rock, some sandstone, and some look to have been bleached by salt water and sun.
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Looking back at the anchorage we can see Avante sitting there peacefully along with several other boats.
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Upon returning to Avante, Manuel, the lobsterman, delivers the 2 langosta we had ordered from him. That evening, we enjoy a great dinner of grilled langosta. It is one of The Captain’s favorite meals, and he is of the firm opinion that all anchorages should have a Manuel, the lobsterman!
Wednesday April 22nd – After a nice calm night, the morning is sunny with no wind when we depart Los Gatos and head north. By mid morning, we have 8-9 knots from behind us. The jib is raised, and Avante sails quietly along at 3 knots. We are in no hurry as we are not going far. Roca Solitaria at entrance to Bahia Solitaria can be seen in the distance. Just before entering the bay, a beautiful marlin swims by leaping out of the water over half a dozen times as he passes the boat.
We anchor in front of the village of Agua Verde. Like all the little settlements along this coast, Agua Verde is a fishing village, and wherever there are fishermen, there are pelicans.
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We are astounded by the kamikaze diving acrobatics of a pelican. From great heights, they point straight down and free fall at incredible speeds beak first into the water.
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At the last minute, they pull their wings back against their bodies and shoot into the water like arrows. The First Mate laughs as she imagines mother pelican taking baby pelican out for its first fishing lesson. “You want me to do what? That?” exclaims the flabbergasted baby. “Nope. I’m heading back to the nest!”
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We decide to stay here another day and go ashore in the morning for a hike. We walk along the outskirts of the village passing the local church and a one-room school house painted up with children’s cartoon themes.
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Agua Verde is one of the villages that does have a road connecting with the main road through the Baja Peninsula. We decide to follow it up and out of town for a while. A few very scrawny cows cross in front of us, and a small herd of goats blocks our way for a bit before wondering off the track. Eventually, we reach a height with a good view down to the village and the bay.
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Pretty and inviting the village may look from the water and from on high, but the dry, dusty landscape and desert vegetation attest to the fact that it is a rough existence down there.
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Friday, April 24th – Our next stop up the coast will be at the large anchorage of Puerto Escondido. Sailing north along the coast, our wind is quite fluky. Only 5 knots at first, then 15 knots for about an hour, then back to 5 knots. We experience one more short wind burst, but it is a very quiet day by the time we reach Los Candeleros Bay.
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Anchoring in Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante for a lunch stop, we have to anchor in 60 feet. There is no way we would ever spend the night here, for there is little room for swinging at anchor and not much safety margin if the winds were to pick up. It is, however, a delightful spot for a quick lunch break.
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After lunch, it is not far to Puerto Escondido, a well protected bay with an interesting approach into the harbor. We go from sections with interesting names: the Waiting Room to the Eclipse to the Inner Harbor. The channel is quite shallow between the Waiting Room and the Eclipse. Even with the tide over 80% of the way up to high tide today, we have less than 1 foot of water under Avante’s keel in the shallowest section. Obviously, we are going to be limited as to when we can come and go here.
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There are a lot of mooring balls in Puerto Escondido and more cruising boats than we have seen since La Paz. There are no empty mooring balls big enough for 50-foot boats, so we anchor out in the bay with a good view of The Windows.
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The next morning we motor back out the depth challenged channel. Tides are higher this morning, and we have no issues. We continue motoring up the Baja coast on another lovely sunny day with light winds. We are hopeful at one point and raise our sails, but 30 minutes later, we have the engine back on. In the early afternoon, we motor past the fairly large town of Loreto. Our anchorage for the night is Caleta San Juanico.
Sunday, April 26th – We raise anchor and depart Calle San Juanico with regrets. This is a very nice anchorage, and we could easily spend a day or so here. It’s sunny again. There is no wind, and the seas are flat calm. We motor north toward Punta Pulpito. At 1000, 15 knots of wind comes out of nowhere. Sails go up. The engine is turned off. Though we are sailing at 7 knots, we are making slow progress toward out destination of Bahia Concepcion because, with the wind from the northwest, we are having to tack back and forth. In mid-afternoon, the wind drops down to 10 knots. We are still sailing decently, but our forward progress is not great due to tacking. Wanting to arrive before dark, The Captain decides to turn on the engine and motorsail in a straight line to our anchorage.
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As if in consolation, we are treated to an amazing wildlife show with numerous dolphins and birds. The First Mate regrets that her camera can only capture a small portion of this spectacle.
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After traveling over 70nm, it’s 1950 by the time we anchor in Bahia Coyote. Fortunately, the days are getting longer at this time of year. After the peaceful sleepy anchorages of the past few weeks, this one is a little different. We are back in civilization. The beach is lined with houses, and there is road noise from trucks and other traffic on Mexican Highway 1.
Monday, April 27th – Bahia Coyote is disappointingly Coyote Ugly! Based on what we had read in the guidebooks, we had scheduled a day here in Bahia. Conception. We toured the nearby anchorages by dinghy, but did not find a better location than Bahia Coyote. From our perspective, this location is a narrow strip of land where mostly winter vacation people from the north have moved in and built open-air, thatched roof dwellings called palapas.
There is the romantic notion of the rustle of a thatched roof in the cooling breeze. Many resorts have played up on that idea. There is also the not so romantic side of squatters who have moved in and set up these palapas over their motor homes or school buses never intending to move them again. There are several such communities along the remote coast of Sea of Cortez. The land is owned, and often there is a rental fee paid to the owner who looks on the whole development benignly since he has no better use for the land. Incendiary problems have arisen when the landowner gets the opportunity to sell the land for development, and the Palapas dwellers, who look on the land as almost theirs since they have been there so long, resist.
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Our impression of this area is not good. The mountains are beautiful, the seas are blue, and the weather is nice. But what man has done here tends to be ugly, cheap and trashy.
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Bahia Concepcion is as far north in the Sea of Cortez as we are planning to go. Tomorrow, we will begin traveling south. It’s not just the encroachment of civilization that is turning us around. It’s also the calendar. The hot summer and the hurricane season are coming to Mexico, and we intend to have Avante safely stored in a marina in Puerto Vallarta and be back in the States long before the end of May. As the crow flies, we are about 500nm northwest of Puerto Vallarta. We have to get going south, for The First Mate wants as much of the trip as possible to be Savor or Cruising Days rather than long Travel Days.